Dragon Age Discussion

[HoonDing]

^Not enough fighting in tunnels?

 

[Monte Carlo]

No, the level of tunnelage was agreeable, it was something else. Not enough exploration, the combat started to get dull, didn't much care for the NPCs...

 

I think I'm just over Bioware RPGs, they are too formulaic for me. They are the pickle in the McDonalds burger that makes everything taste the same, and you can't take it out. I want a big, exploration-based game with an old-skool feel, there's a reason why SoZ was my favourite RPG offering for quite a while.

 

So while Dragon Age was good, and I acknowledge all the positive stuff about it, Awakenings was a slice too much of Ferelden for me in the end. I'm a cup half full sort of bloke, though, and predict that mebbe the wheel will turn full circle and that party-based, sand-boxy games will come back into fashion. Until then there are lots of other games to get into or re-play.

[Gromnir]

there's a reason why SoZ was my favourite RPG offering for quite a while.

 

am so very tempted to respond with a host o' possible reasons to explain why anybody would choose soz as a recent favorite. soz?

 

HA! Good Fun!

[~Di]

SoZ? What's that? I think I knew once, but I forgot. It's hell to get old...

[Volourn]

SOZ is one of the SOZZIES games ever. It is, by far, Obsidians' worst game ever. Even Troika's worst game was better. Heck, even Bethesda's worst game is about equal to it. SOZ is SOZZY. let's put it that way.

 

P.S. SOZ = Storm of Zheir, NWN2's 2nd and uglier cousin expansion to the ever awesome MOTB. DISGUSTING!

[Jaesun]

SoZ? What's that? I think I knew once, but I forgot. It's hell to get old...

 

The second NWN2 expansion, Storm of Zehier.

 

A fabulous game.

[~Di]

SoZ? What's that? I think I knew once, but I forgot. It's hell to get old...

 

The second NWN2 expansion, Storm of Zehier.

 

A fabulous game.

 

Ah. Thank you.

[Nepenthe]

"Zephyr"?

[WorstUsernameEver]

It's 'Zehir' btw.

[Nepenthe]

It's 'Zehir' btw.

 

I'm sure we can think of a few more alternate spellings first, though!

[WorstUsernameEver]

It's 'Zehir' btw.

 

I'm sure we can think of a few more alternate spellings first, though!

 

Zhrie? Rihze? eZhir?

 

The possibilities are endless (no they're actually not, but whatever, it's a fun thing to say write).

[HoonDing]

SOZ is one of the SOZZIES games ever. It is, by far, Obsidians' worst game ever. Even Troika's worst game was better. Heck, even Bethesda's worst game is about equal to it. SOZ is SOZZY. let's put it that way.

This is sig worthy.

[Syraxis]

SOZ is one of the SOZZIES games ever. It is, by far, Obsidians' worst game ever. Even Troika's worst game was better. Heck, even Bethesda's worst game is about equal to it. SOZ is SOZZY. let's put it that way.

This is sig worthy.

 

Excellent suggestion.

[Monte Carlo]

Hmph.

[Morgoth]

I have to agree with Volo. I could never finish SoZ because it was basically a broken game. You spent more time looking at loading screens than actual game play.

[Gromnir]

I have to agree with Volo. I could never finish SoZ because it was basically a broken game. You spent more time looking at loading screens than actual game play.

 

our primary problem with soz were that it were 1/2 of a game... and the less important half at that. the overland travel map were intriguing, though the implementation were a bit odd. unfortunately, the critical path encounters were extreme lacking in depth, and many o' the overland map encounters were equally uninspired. am recalling how the folks over at rpgcodex gushed over a hunting cabin encounter. huh. the hunting cabin encounter involved a two-room cabin encounter: a priest o' malar shouts a peta slogan and then he and his furry woodland friends attack. we never could figure out why the codexians thought such an encounter were REAL rpg fare. maybe that is why we don't get their fascination with arcanum neither. in any event, 80% o' soz were composed of similarly shallow encounters... and the more defined set-pieces were hardly more developed. the underdark black market that josh were so proud of hardly made one forget the bg2 market map... were more akin to the iwd deep gnome village. the trading/merchant stuff coulda' been interesting, if it weren't bugged to hell.

 

on the positive end o' the spectrum, soz may be the first obsidian/bis game (other than iwd) in which the climax were not a disappointment... but that is simply 'cause we were expecting so very little from soz by the time we reached the Final Battle.

 

1/2 of a game. if the overland map, mini-encounters, and trading aspects o' soz had been included in nwn2, then we woulda' been genuine impressed. all the tangential features and mini-encounters woulda' been great... if they had been attached to an actual game. am suspecting that the developers were working under the misapprehension that the gestalt o' all o' soz's little 5-minute encounters would result in a compelling rpg experience, but that were not the case for Gromnir. the absence o' any kinda depth o' encounters or characters left us thoroughly unsatisfied with the soz experience.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited June 1, 2010 by Gromnir

[Monte Carlo]

I, on the other hand, was simply looking for a CRPG-lite, fun gaming experience with some old-skool features. I didn't expect much else so was quite happy with the result.

 

My main criticism was that it needed more FiGhtINg In TuNNelS, there wasn't one big mega-dungeon centrepiece, a Durlag's Tower or whatever.

 

I know DA / SoZ is apples and oranges. It's just that games nowadays take themselves so darn seriously. I don't want to feel like I'm in an epic fantasy novel, I want to feel like I'm having a laugh in a mate's garage with pizza and beer and D&D. SoZ got nearer to that than a lot of games I've played, including DA:O and Awakenings.

 

SoZ has been villified for not being a michelin starred meal when all that was promised was a slice of straightforward D&D pie.

[Gromnir]

SoZ has been villified for not being a michelin starred meal when all that was promised was a slice of straightforward D&D pie.

 

 

if you like soz, then there ain't no need to apologize... however we will take exception with the aforementioned quote.

 

differing expectations for a game does not actual change the quality of the game. we has made this point before, with very little success, so we do not presently expect better results. compare a game developed by bioware v. iron tower. should iron tower get some kinda free pass 'cause they is indie and first timers? why? when comparing the objective quality o' games developed by bio and iron tower, does one consider the resources and experience o' the developers? why? playing a game developed by thumb-less morons is not inherently more fun then a game developed by cal-tech grads, is it?

 

with soz, you were only expecting humble pie...

 

now personally, we don't thinks the pie were particular well made regardless. even if you were only wanting one aspect from soz, you would still expect quality from that single aspect, no? as noted, the trading function were bugged, and the mechanics o' the overland map (tied to the Leader's skills) were irrational and poorly balanced. the random encounters were amusing... the first dozen or so times, but afterward they became tedious to say the least. apparent there weren't a clearing or uncharted beach in all the FRs that were not populated by some sorta savage beastie. so many large predators in such a small area musta played serious havoc with the ecosystem... and am not sure what economic theory would support so many bandits (ignoring the fact that the bandits seemed to be able to ignore the beasties.) is a fantasy world, so normal rules need not apply, but even if you thought the first bear attack were kewl, am not seeing what thrill could be derived from bear attack #8, as there were no variation from attack #2 or #6.

 

...

 

if in da:o you had an encounter such as the hunting cabin described above, it would be derided, but 'cause soz had a couple dozen such encounters it is kewl? am not seeing how that makes sense... on any level. the little bits o' pie were not particular good in soz... but you did get lots of 'em.

 

am recalling a kid we knew long time ago. his parents were kinda uninvolved with his rearing, so for easter they give him $10 and tells him to get whatever candy he wants. he lived much closer to town than did Gromnir, were only an 8 mile walk. the kid with his crisp $10 bill treks to town and buys $10 worth o' jellybeans... were more than five pounds. when he arrives home his mom has a fit and tells the kid to go back to town and return all those damn jellybeans. personally, we thinks the kid were treated unfairly by his mother, all things considered. make a kid walk another 16 miles to return 5 lbs o' jelly beans? nevertheless, we is reminded o' the jellybean kid when we hears that mc liked soz. is no way in hell Gromnir could stomach 5 lbs o' jellybeans, bust some folks apparently likes such filler. is apparently why woolworth were able sells jellybeans by bulk.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps to continue mc metaphor, we thinks that if mc were expecting pie, we thinks soz developers were providing little more than crust, and not even particularly great crust at that. only got a hint o' cherry/apple/peach pie filling along with his pie. mc got 1/2 pie.

 

pps to stay on-topic, we think it is very bad form for bio to have not provided a new patch considering all the bugs da: awakening and 1.03 created.

Edited June 1, 2010 by Gromnir

[Slowtrain]

differing expectations for a game does not actual change the quality of the game.

 

 

Nope it doesn't, but it may very well change how "quality" is defined by the gamer.

 

I would say quality si as much subjective in a game as it is objective.

 

Just look at the current opinions on Alpha Protocol. Everyone is playing the same game, objectively, but the opinions on quality are varying enormously.

[Orogun01]

differing expectations for a game does not actual change the quality of the game.

 

 

Nope it doesn't, but it may very well change how "quality" is defined by the gamer.

 

I would say quality si as much subjective in a game as it is objective.

 

Just look at the current opinions on Alpha Protocol. Everyone is playing the same game, objectively, but the opinions on quality are varying enormously.

Quality and opinion are different things and a lot of those reviews are on the biased side of things. AP is a game with technical problems but is not unplayable, it's quality doesn't depend nor changes with person to person. Quality is intrinsic and objective, what a gamer prefers and what it's actually wrong are different.

I would say that quality is a mix of content with performance and that the gamer's opinion is irrelevant.

[Volourn]

"SoZ has been villified for not being a michelin starred meal when all that was promised was a slice of straightforward D&D pie."

 

I believed we were promised a fun D&D game akin to greats of the past like the Gb games yet what we got wa sonen of the worst D&D games ever. It's being villified ';cause it's simply a poorly made game that insults old school dungeon crawls 'causen it's, quite frankly, a poor one.

 

As Grom said, the combat encounters were horrible. The dungeons were horrible. The npcs were horrible. The writing was horrible. The world map, which cool IN THEORY, was horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible.

 

SOZ was so horribble it invented a new word for crap.

 

SOZZY.

 

SOZ = SOZZY

 

SOZZY = crap

[~Di]

Whoa, didn't mean to start a thread hijacking! But since I did, I'm glad I never bought the game, since what I learned about it during development was that it would bear absolutely no resemblance to NWN2 itself, and seemed to be a totally foreign concept tacked on as an "expansion" to a game that I pretty much liked as it was.

[Hurlshort]

There were quite a few folks that seemed to really enjoy SoZ. From their reviews, it seemed to be a more classic Icewind Dale type game than the standard narrative RPG's we see mostly today. By that I mean you roll a full party up and go kill stuff.

 

It sounds like it wasn't Volourn's cup of tea.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Problems with Storm of Zehir imho were two :

- lack of an engine that supported that style of gameplay well (if you don't have a fast enough computer say goodbye to the gameplay and hello to loading screens!);

- lackluster main quest path, with encounters and dialogue not strong enough to make anyone who isn't a fan of the combat still play the game;

 

I don't think it's as bad as Volourn is making it to be, I had fun with it, and honestly, part of the fun also came from seeing how some modders implemented SoZ features in their mod (see the splendid, Ravenloft-based, Misery Stone), but it's no masterpiece at all.

I'd give it a 6/6,5 on 10.

[Gromnir]

There were quite a few folks that seemed to really enjoy SoZ. From their reviews, it seemed to be a more classic Icewind Dale type game than the standard narrative RPG's we see mostly today. By that I mean you roll a full party up and go kill stuff.

 

It sounds like it wasn't Volourn's cup of tea.

 

 

is an unfair comparison to iwd, for multiple reasons. there are joinable npcs in soz. the soz jnpcs is much more akin to bg1 jnpcs or fo:t jnpcs than anything we has seen in a crpg for a long time. a collection o' stats and little else. you do create your own (up to) four member party at the start o' soz, but there are jnpcs available... is easy to forget that point, so we hardly blame hurl for failing to mention. heck, you can very easily create a 4-member party at the start o' bg1 if you so desire. soz is more akin to bg1, before you arrive in bg city, than it has in common with iwd. you is much more likely to random be attacked by wolves in soz and bg1. you is much more likely to have extreme brief overland map encounters in bg1 and soz. your jnpcs is unlikely to makes your playing experience noticeably better or worse in both bg1 and soz. the encounters in bg1 and soz were more repetitive than iwd encounters. am not certain how many times we encountered the same group of hobgoblins, bandits and gnolls in bg1... had deja vu for soz. bg1 had a cave with a chest, two web traps and an ettercap... call it an encounter. huzzah. bg1 overland map encounters were brief and largely forgettable... just as were soz encounters. nashkel mines in bg1? pretty boring and underdeveloped in retrospect... kinda similar to the handful o' larger set pieces in soz. bg1... pre-bg city.

 

conversely, the entirety of iwd supports the development o' the critical path, you cannot say the same o' soz. iwd had memorable npcs. soz had volo? combat encounters were far more varied and deep in iwd than bg1... or even soz... in spite of old ad&d rules. iwd had a cohesive and engaging plot which soz lacked. iwd had large and highly developed dungeons... the kinda thing that should garner mc approval... lots of tunnels. no such stuff in soz or bg1. however, we does admit that iwd had yuan-ti. am supposing that for some folks, yuan-ti were THE important similarity.

 

now keep in mind that we understands that many folks on these boards love bg1. we think some o' that it rosey-hued recollection. nostalgia is what genuine drives positive recollections o' bg1, 'cause if bg1 (up to bg city) were released today with an updated engine and a new name, it would get less love from the critics than AP is getting... and rightfully so. 'course much as bg1 is half a game w/o bg city...

 

*shrug*

 

HA! Good Fun!